Waiting
by Starlit Skyline
Summary: When the killing curse strikes Harry a second time, he doesn't wake up at King's Cross nor is it Dumbledore who comes to greet him.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Fullmetal Alchemist. This is Brotherhood-verse, which is pretty much the same as the manga - so yeah, read on and I hope you enjoy it!

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**Waiting**

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_He lay facedown, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself._

_A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too._

_~Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; chapter thirty-five: King's Cross; paragraphs one and two._

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Harry frowned as he sat up, still feeling the something which made up the floor. That something was neither warm nor cold, but it existed just as plainly as he did.

He took a moment to asses himself. His cloths and glasses were where he'd left them, and he realized with some surprise that he was unscratched.

After finishing his examination, Harry turned to his surroundings. His green eyes roamed across the strange place he had found himself in warily. He was alarmed to find white, empty space encompassing him on all sides.

White. White. White. Left. Right. Up. Down. Nothing but white on all sides, but one. A single dot of color had caught Harry's eye as he'd frantically turned his head this way and that.

It was a giant slab of stone, at least ten-feet tall and rather ominous looking – but what was even more peculiar was that it was _floating_ in midair. The thing looked like it weighted a ton!

Blinking in rapid succession, Harry wondered if he'd hit his head somewhere. But when the thing did not fade from existence when he opened his eyes, he was assured that he wasn't seeing things – however slight that reassurance might have been.

He continued to stare at the slab of gray rock and it continued to exist just as it had moments before, unfazed by his disbelieving gaze.

There was something engraved at the front of the rock, which seemed like a gigantic door when he'd properly looked it over – it certainly had that shape. The engravings were strange, an imprecise drawing and symbols written in some language he couldn't decipher.

Harry felt a shiver claw down his spine. There was something... _off_ about the whole area. He felt like he shouldn't be here, that it was wrong and dangerous to be here. This place put him on edge, he felt like he was just waiting for something to jump out and grab him and... he shouldn't have been there.

Lowering his eyes from the rock, Harry's gaze landed on the third thing occupying the empty space beside him and the ominous floating rock. That thing was another person – a rather _naked _one at that.

Long blond hair fell down slight shoulders and down to perturbing hipbones – but what was even more disturbing to Harry than the girl's nudity was the state of her body. She was practically skin and bones!

He stood just a few feet behind her, her hair partially obscuring her frame, but it was painfully obvious the girl hadn't had a meal in a very long time.

The girl was slouching slightly, as if she hadn't the energy to even sit straight. She didn't seem to have noticed him yet, which struck Harry as odd. They were only a few feet away, how could she have not noticed he was there?

Harry was both dumbfounded and uneasy. Questions swarmed his mind: Where was he? Why was he here? Where was "here"? And who was this girl sitting in front of the massive gray door/stone/whatever it was?

Well, only one way to find out.

"Um, hello?" he called out hesitantly. The blond didn't move, but by the tensing of the barely there muscles of her back, Harry knew she must have heard him.

"Uh, hi." He said, taking an unsure step forward. There was still no response, just a tense back and a heavy silence. Finally, with painful effort, the crown of flaxen hair turned to face him. One golden-brown eye, reminiscent of caramels, peeked from the mane of too long strands, a part of which obscured the right cheek and other eye. The rest of the body was half-turned, set in a very awkward and uncomfortable position, but the blonde seemed to be too busy staring back at him to notice.

Again, only stiff silence. The blond's eyes were wide, as if she too, couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Sorry, but where..." he fumbled with his words, feeling self-conscious and awkward "Do you know where we are?"

The blond blinked, opening her mouth as if to speak, her movements sluggish, as if she hadn't talked for days – maybe longer. Her gentle face was set in a slight frown. "Yes, you don't?"

It was Harry's turn to frown, not at the question but at the voice that spoke it. It was pretty high in pitch, but it didn't sound feminine. Harry could only shake his head, ashamed that he couldn't give a proper answer when it was obviously taxing for the blond to speak with him.

Harry's eyes unintentionally traveled downwards, when something caught his attention. The girl had no breasts... which meant two things really – either the girl was incredibly flat-chested or... "You're a boy!" he only realized what he'd said when the blond's face turned bright red in embarrassment – he imagined he wasn't any better.

Harry scrambled for a way to fix his mistake: "Um, sorry, it just that... your hair..." he began hastily, but trailed off when he realized he didn't know what to say.

There was an awkward silence. The blonde was obviously uncomfortable with him standing there, staring at him like he was an animal on display at the zoo – Harry knew the feeling, but the situation was far too bizarre for him to notice the impropriety of him gawking like an idiot at the other boy.

There was a nervous laugh. "Well... this is embarrassing." Harry hadn't thought the blonde's cheeks could get any redder. He fidgeted slightly. "Yeah… you could say that again."

Another uneasy pause. This time, Harry was the one to break it. "What are you doing here?" he blurted.

The blond blinked in surprise, but seemed thankful for the change of topic – and Harry was now determined not to let his eyes travel any further than the blonde's chest. He could at least spare himself the embarrassment.

The answer caught him by surprise. "Waiting."

"Waiting?" Harry repeated, puzzled. There was a nod on the blonde's account and a raised eyebrow on his. "Okay~?"

Awkwardness was still thick in the air and Harry found it exceedingly hard to keep the flow of the conversation going.

The blonde shifted on his place on the floor, turning to face while simultaneously drawing his bony legs up to his chest – no doubt to hide his modesty. Harry was grateful for that, at least. The blonde looked nervous, and Harry decided to sit down himself, to make himself less threatening.

"Do you know how you got here?"

Harry frowned, shaking his head "How could I know how I got "here", if I don't know where is "here"?"

"Ah." the other boy seemed thoughtful, his head cocked to the side slightly – Harry couldn't help but be reminded of a curious child. "What's the last thing you remember?"

He had to mull over his answer before speaking. Voldemort. He remembered trees and Death Eaters and a distorted face leering at him. Hagrid. Hagrid was there as well. He remembered green and then black – then he'd woken up here. Was he dead, then? This place did seem otherworldly, after all. But what if it wasn't? He'd probably make more of an idiot out of himself if he began asking things like that. "Um, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"That would be a first." the other boy said lightly, a gentle smile on his face "Trust me, I've heard and lived through a lot of impossible things."

Harry was still in doubt, but, deciding he had nothing to lose, he said: "Um, well, I remember... dying?"

He wasn't sure if the uncertainty in his voice or the sheer ludicrousness of his claim made the blond burst out in laughter – probably both. Harry wasn't sure what reaction he had been expecting, but this certainly was not it. The boy only shocked him more with his next words: "So that's why you're here!" he exclaimed when he could breathe normally once again "Good! For a moment there you had me worried."

Harry, in his incredulous state, felt anger bubbling up inside him "Why are you laughing?! I just told you that I died!" the statement seemed crazy even to his own ears, but the blond only gave another snicker before growing grim.

"There are worse things than death, you know?" he said solemnly, and a shadow seemed to pass over his face, before it vanished as if it had never been there.

"Um," again, Harry found himself at a loss for words. Another lull encompassed them, but this one wasn't nearly as tense or awkward as the last.

There was a strange look on the blonde's face, somehow both assessing and unreadable – like he was waiting for something that just wouldn't happen already.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" the tone was light, but somehow Harry could feel the weight behind those words.

"What?"

Another laugh, the other boy seemed to love laughing. "You really don't know why you're here, do you?"

A shake of the head. A sigh.

Harry decided it was his turn to ask questions then. "What are you waiting for?"

"I'm waiting for a person to come and get me, so I can return to where I belong." There was something nostalgic – no, _longing _– in his expression when he said that. "What are _you _waiting for?"

Harry blinked "I'm not waiting for anything."

"You must be waiting for something if you're here."

"What is "here", anyway?"

The blond shrugged, a bony hand coming up to rub the back of his skull – a nervous habit, maybe? "It's kinda hard to explain, but the simplest way to think of it is like a crossroads." Almost as an afterthought, he added "Until you make a choice, I'm afraid you're stuck here with me."

"I don't get it." He said after a pause.

"What exactly don't you get?"

"Everything." Because the whole situation was a bit too damn surreal for him to make any sense to him.

The blonde grinned easily, now totally relaxed "That's a rather wide answer." He said teasingly, but it only served to aggravate Harry's temper even more.

"And _you _haven't given _me _an answer!"

The blonde frowned at his tone, but answered nonetheless "I already told you. It isn't my fault you don't understand." Harry glared. The boy just shrugged it off with a nervous laugh "Sorry, sorry. I couldn't resist, you remind me a bit of my brother when he's being moody and unreasonable."

The glare didn't waver. There was another nervous laugh. "Hey, you try spending five years without any social interaction and see how you end up."

That made Harry pause, dumbfounded and wondering if he'd heard right. "You've been here five years?" he asked disbelieving.

"Yes and no.*" Harry almost growled in frustration, but the blond simply continued to look apologetic and perhaps slightly sheepish "It's complicated."

The Boy-Who-Lived let out an irritated sigh "Isn't everything?"

"Depends on how you look at it."

"This is getting us nowhere!"

"I'm not really in a hurry to get anywhere – you, on the other hand..."

"What? What about me?" Harry spat out irritably, if a bit warily.

The blonde's shoulders seemed to slump as he averted his gaze to stare at the white floor. "I told you to think of this as a crossroads, you're here because you need to choose which path you are going to take."

Instead of clearing anything up, the statement only served to confuse Harry even more, so he chose that moment to ask the question that had been bugging his since he woke up. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

To his surprise, the blond merely shook his head "Not quite. Not yet, at least."

Then a realization struck him "Are _you _dead?"

A blink. A surprised face. "Huh, I never actually thought of it that way. But yes, I guess you could say that. I no longer have a body in the real world and my spirit isn't bound to anything to keep me there – so yes, in a way, I'm dead."

Seeing the way Harry was looking at him, he smiled, but it was different from all the other smiles he'd worn since they met. "It's a bit of an unnerving thought, isn't it?"

Harry could only nod meekly.

"But... what about me? What am I supposed to do?" he asked hesitantly.

"You are now a spirit – but you're still holding on to the body you inhabited. So, now you're supposed to choose if you want to go back... or cross over."

That was heavy. Go back or leave the world of the living behind? A place without Voldemort and the Death Eaters and the entire blasted war was quite tempting but... but what about the people he was leaving behind? What about Ron and Hermione? And everybody else? Would they survive the battle? Would they join him in the afterlife, would they suffer? Would they miss him?

The weight of the world seemed to have settled on his shoulders once again.

He didn't know what to do. "Hey, um..." he called out hesitantly, he needed a bit of advice, but he wasn't sure how to ask for it. The unreality of the situation seemed to increase ten-fold.

"Alphonse." The name cut through his morose thoughts. His head shot up. "Huh?"

"Alphonse." the blond boy repeated "But call me Al."

"Oh, okay. I'm Harry Potter." Why hadn't they done this at the start? Harry wondered.

Alphonse smiled politely "Nice to meet you, Harry."

Harry found himself nodding, but not really paying attention to the pleasantries. "Uh, Al, why have you been here so long?" it was one of those things that really bugged him – not that anything in this strange place didn't put him on edge, but the fact that someone had spent _years _in this place raised the hairs on his neck. How had he survived, anyway? "I mean, if this is, you know..." Harry didn't know what he was about to say – a waiting area, maybe? That sounded dumb, but it was the only thing he could call this place.

"I'm waiting." The nostalgia was back, as was the vague answer, but this time, Al chose to elaborate. "We waste so much of our lives just waiting, wishing, longing."

It was still as vague as hell. "Uh, for what?"

Al seemed to have spaced out. Harry wondered if he'd heard him at all. Just as he was about to repeat his question, Al spoke: "There a lot of things people are willing to wait an eternity for, Mister Potter.

Waiting for something you want to happen without you doing anything to realize it.

Waiting for a person, whether to accept or return your feelings – while you may often drift further apart as time passes.

Waiting for a good opportunity you won't realize you had until it passes you by.

Waiting for people you haven't met yet but want to be special to and they to you.

Waiting, it's kind of like anticipation, like some sort of climax even though there's nothing happening around you." he mused out loud, and Harry wondered if Al was aware Harry was still there.

"Waiting for someone to save you."

Al sighed, and the longing shone clearly in his caramel eyes. "And waiting until you are reunited with a person you should have never been separated from." Then his expression grew morose, helpless in a way. "Waiting... for the impossible to happen."

Harry had stayed quiet throughout the monologue, but even if he was listening intently, he almost missed the last, whispered sentence: "So much time... wasted on just wishing yourself away."

He seemed to snap out of his daze with those words. Determination took the place of longing and nostalgia and Al said, almost to himself, with something fierce and unrelenting in his eyes. "I want to go. I want to see what's on the other side of this Gate. I want it to take me back to the place it took me from." He seemed to deflate after that and Harry had to strain his ears to catch the whispered:

"I want to go home," small and fragile and on the verge of shattering – the tone made Harry's stomach twist. "There are people waiting for me there." Why was he telling him all this? Al had just met him, so why was he sharing such personal information with Harry? Had he been so lonely here that he didn't care who he said these things to, as long as he could get him of his chest? Those words sounded like a heavy burden to bear.

He turned his attention back to Harry, who had thought the blonde had all but forgotten him in his little speech. "There are people waiting for your return too, aren't there?" Harry nodded numbly, quite unsure of what to make of all of this. Alphonse only smiled, but Harry didn't miss the wishful look that crossed his face. "Well, you shouldn't keep them waiting now, should you?"

There was a pause. Harry made no move to get up. "Hey, um, Al?"

"Yes?"

"The person you've been waiting for..." he hesitated, but decided he needed this question answered. "Do you think they'll ever come?"

Alphonse froze, before his gaze returned to the floor. His bleached hair came to curtain his face, making it hard for Harry to see his face. The Boy-Who-Lived feared he'd asked something too personal and was just about to reassure Al that he didn't have to say anything when he heard a small voice coming from the curled up heap in front of him. "Even if he doesn't... even if he doesn't make it, I want to hold on 'till then."

Al raised his head slightly, just enough so that his caramel eyes peeked over his knee-caps "There are some things worth holding on to." he smiled sadly "There are some things worth waiting for."

Harry found himself smiling too, though there was something slightly bitter in his throat. "Yeah, I guess there are."

"Um, how do I... go back?"

Al shrugged. "Not sure. But my guess is, since you have a choice, just say it out-loud and Trut- uhm, and you should be back in your body." he paused, and an uneasy expression crossed his face. "Just... close your eyes first."

That was a strange request. "Uh, why?"

Al was laughing nervously again. "Heh heh, trust me... you don't wanna know." the way he said it, Harry got the distinct idea that he certainly wouldn't, so he closed his eyes, waiting for the darkness to take him once more, but found his mouth moving almost on it's own: "Hey, Al?"

"Hm?"

"Will we ever meet again?" he push his eyelids open a crack to see the other pause, before shrugging nonchalantly "Who knows? The universe is a strange and winding place, all is possible."

"It would be nice though." He added after a while, almost to himself.

"Yeah. But next you have to promise me that you won't talk in riddles." The darkness swarmed around the edges of his vision, like little arms all reaching for him at once, stealing away the white nothingness in which Alphonse would remain for who-knows how much longer.

As his world faded to black, Harry could have sworn he heard a soft laugh and a whispered promise:

"Sure thing, Harry Potter, sure thing."

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* - Al's body spent five years in the Gate, while Al's soul was tied to the armor. In my mind, when the two merged back together Al had memories of both his life inside the Gate and his life in Amestris after the Transmutation. Hence the "yes and no". I hope this makes sense.

Anyway, thanks for reading! You do not know how awkward some of this was to write! Still, I like how it turned out. Review, please? I'd love to hear your opinions! Was it good? Was it bad? Loved it? Hated it? Please tell me! (criticism is welcome as well!)


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